


Steamships, Cyborgs, and Self-Determination: A Steampunk Story

by JacarandaBanyan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Body Horror, Body Modification, Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Comic Book Science, Cyborgs, Developing Relationship, M/M, Mild Gore, No one gets hurt onscreen but there's evidence of past hurt, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prompt Fill, The tech in this is suuuuper reliant on suspension of disbelief, Tony Stark Bingo 2019, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, like really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:21:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacarandaBanyan/pseuds/JacarandaBanyan
Summary: The Cyborg Assassin formally known as Bucky Barnes is sent on a double assassination mission. His Targets: Anthony E Stark, brilliant inventor and scientist, and Steve Rogers, subversive artist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts:  
Chapter 1: Tony Stark Bingo K4: Steampunk AU  
Chapter 2: Bucky Barnes Bingo B5: Steampunk AU  
Chapter 3: Tony Stark Bingo K3: Anger Issues

The Asset snuck onto the steamship in the dead of night, after the gas lamps leading down to the docks had been lit but the last of the curious onlookers hadn’t yet gone home. He made use of the way the lamplight reflected off the lightly falling rain and the sound of the drops hitting the concrete to hide his movements. None of the men Stark had hired to guard his precious ship heard his light footfalls, and if their eyes caught a stray movement in the shadows or imagined the dull gleam of light on metal, they ignored it. It was just the light, just the rain, just the drops hitting the shrubbery.

Human hands might have slipped on the slick metal of the gate, but the Asset’s metal grip was sure. With the grace of a ballet dancer he launched himself over the gate and landed on light, sure feet. 

The wood of the docks creaked slightly under his weight as he slipped silently onto Dock 4-B. The few steamboats tied up here were dark shadows bobbing lightly with the waves. Not a single light was lit. The only illumination came from the few street lamps not blocked by some marina building or another, or from the blaze of light from the party on Dock 6-D. 

The Asset paused for a moment, eyes locked on the brightness of his first destination. It was too far away to make out anything so detailed as the faces of the party guests, but he could count twenty-three figures on the upper deck, milling about around a large table covered in a variety of dishes. Groups of two to five roamed the lower decks, voices loud, drunk, and carrying, and still more people thronged on the dock itself, sheltered under great tents with little lights hanging from the edges. 

He took a deep breath, letting the chilly night air fill his lungs like great dirigible balloons, then dove into the water.

The cold stabbed into his chest like a knife, sharp and shocking, but he ignored the feeling. It didn’t affect his arms or legs, so it didn’t really matter. 

The water was dirty, full of sea-debris and discarded bits of paper from the fish and chips stands and dockside marine stores that dotted the shoreline. Occasionally a bit of metal gleamed up from the darkness, resting on the bottom of the harbor like the bones of a long-dead whale picked clean of flesh. There were far more signs of humanity than of marine life, though the underwater edges of the docks and the pilings that held them in place made a good showing. Barnacles and a myriad of mollusks with sharp edges that would have cut his fingers if they had still been made of flesh lurked amid teeming crowds of anemones and delicate, waving sea weeds. 

The Asset swam silent and steady as a hunting crocodile towards the patch of brightness on the surface that marked the steamship. Not even when the oxygen in his lungs began to run out and the tight, thrumming discomfort of asphyxiation began to set in did he let his elegant motions turn into the sort of thrashing that might get him spotted. 

He emerged into the shadow of the great ship, where the light wouldn’t reflect off his metallic limbs and give him away. He resisted the urge to wipe the water from his eyes or push his wet hair from his face. 

No excessive movement during stealth infiltrations. 

Tentative metal fingers tapped the metal siding of the ship. The sound was muffled and soft; far too soft to be heard over the rain. Satisfied, the Asset dug his blade-like nails into the barely-there seams where different pieces of metal had been married together and heaved himself up out of the water. The muscles in his back and shoulders trembled slightly from the strain. His arms and legs did not. 

He climbed the side of the ship like a spider until he reached the lowermost deck. There he hovered, clinging to the side of the ship just beyond the reach of the lamps. His eyes swept methodically up and down the walkway, searching for some sign that any of the giggling groups had come around to the side of the deck that faced away from the party on the docks. There was no one. 

He clambered cat-like over the railing and ducked into a cramped side stairway. The light of the lamps only fell on him for a fraction of a second. 

Once again safely tucked away into the shadows, he unslung the waterproof pack from his back and removed a towel to wipe down first himself and then his path. It wouldn’t do to leave a trail of standing water on the floor in case someone  _ did _ come back here to get away from the festivities. Once satisfied that all evidence had been dealt with, he slipped the towel back into his bag and continued on. 

The stairway was clearly intended for the servants currently out serving on the dock. It was thin enough that something animalistic in the back of his brain grumbled at the feeling of being pinned in, and the stairwell itself lacked the shiny finish and fancy flourishes of the woodwork on the outside of the ship. It was unlikely that anyone but him was using them right now. He kept his guard up anyways. 

Step by step he prowled his way to Stateroom #12, on the uppermost level of the ship. A shiny brass nameplate on the door proclaimed that the room belonged to Anthony E. Stark. His information-tape on the Targets he was assigned to hit tonight matched the name to that of Target #2. _ _

The Asset opened the door, slipped inside, and began to wait for his target to present himself. 

The room was filled with odd contraptions and strange machines. Some of them looked just familiar enough to send shivers down the Asset’s spine, though why he did not know. His mechanical memory only contained whatever information his handlers fed it; perhaps the memory-tape about those particular machines had been removed. When he reported to his handlers after the mission, he would have to tell them that the information on those memory tapes had been mission-relevant. 

He slid into a small space between one such nearly person-sized machine and the wall of the stateroom where the shadows obscured his face and the only entrance was right in the middle of his sightline, but he would not be visible to anyone entering the room. Then he settled down to wait.

As the Asset waited, time seemed to turn to thick, sticky syrup. The distant laughter from the docks went on and on, eddying like currents of sound over the steady hum of the string quartet playing on one of the lower decks. It was already dark out, so no matter how many heartbeats passed, the shadows cast by the gaudy lights fell no longer or shorter through the small cabin windows. Were it not for the constant beat of  _ the mission _ in his grinding machine-mind, the Asset might have drifted off to sleep long before Target #2 finally returned to his quarters. 

The Target was carrying some sort of fancy lantern that cast a bright golden light over the whole room. The Asset shrank back further into the shadow cast by the machine, waiting for the moment when Target #2 would close the door and seal his only escape route. 

Only the Target didn’t close the door. Not right away. Instead, he looked over his shoulder and beckoned a Potential Witness to follow him inside. 

The Asset’s gears ground in frustration. He hated having to kill witnesses. Normally he’d wait however long it took for the Target to be alone again, but the dawn was only scant hours away, and the information-tapes in his mind told him that Target #2 was well-known for taking multiple partners to bed. The odds that the Potential Witness would leave before the sun rose and it was time for the ship to leave the docks were slim. 

Then the witness appeared, and the gears in the Asset’s head ground to a halt. 

Behind Target #2 came Target #1.

Target #1 was not supposed to be on the ship.

Target #1 was tiny, barely a wisp of a man. The Asset could have snapped him like a half-melted candlestick over his knee. But something about him made the Asset shy back further into the shadows until his spine was pressed up against the wall and the targets were just barely in his line of sight. That thin, pale face made the deep-down leftovers of his brain go absolutely haywire.

The Asset frantically consulted his memory-tapes, but he came up empty-handed. There was not one frame of his face, not one syllable of audio, not even a second of narration from his handlers. 

Panicking, he switched to his information-tapes.  _ Target #1: Steve Rogers is a subversive artist who mainly uses his work to take on Steam Magnates and city project planners. His recent string of high-profile, successful attacks on HYDRA agents and affiliates and the country-wide attention his art and activism have garnered makes him a key target. Steve Rogers must be neutralized at least six months before the preliminary elections begin, or HYDRA interests in City, State, and Federal government will be compromised. _

The tape clicked as it hit the end, and the little mechanical gizmos welded to his skull began to automatically rewind it in case the Asset wanted to consult it again.

His heart began to pound in his chest. What was this? Why did the remnants of his old brain remember Target #1? Why was there nothing about him in his memory-tapes? Surely his handlers knew that if he had memories of Target #1, they could only aid him in carrying out his mission. Was he supposed to fail? Was he not lauded as the agent that never failed? What could possibly HYDRA gain if he failed?

There had been a handler, once, who had delighted in removing all of the Asset’s memory-tapes before sending him on missions, just to make it harder on him. When he did so, the Asset’s error rate skyrocketed, and his effectiveness shrank. The world was bizarre and terrifying without memory-tapes, no matter how many information-tapes they crammed inside his skull. The Asset’s next handler’s first orders had been to execute that handler for his excesses. 

Nausea spread through him like rot. Why didn’t he have the right memory-tapes? The knowledge that his targets were romantically linked was mission-critical intel.

Target #1 followed Target #2 over to the opulent bed, where they collapsed together into a sea of lacy pillows. 

“Steve, stay here with me,” Target #2 whined. “Natasha will totally cover for you. Besides, it’s my ship, and I can alter room arrangements at will.”

“Not once we’re underway you can’t.”

“But we’re not underway yet! Were we still tied up to the dock when you came up? Because we were when I did, and if we’re still tied up then by definition we’re not underway yet.”

“Your father-“

“Let me worry about Howard. He won’t even be a problem come next week, though, so I don’t see how you think he’ll scare me into letting you sleep somewhere else. You just be a good little snuggle bunny and stay here in my bed.”

Target #1 laughed softly and pressed a kiss to Target #2’s lips so softly he could have been kissing a soap bubble.

“Okay Tony. I’ll stay.”

Target #1 eased off a thick, stiff jacket and handed it to Target #2, who tossed it carelessly across a chair several feet away from the Asset’s hiding spot. As the fabric slid off Target #1’s arms, it revealed two identical braces. Each one was attached to tight pieces of cloth around Target #1’s wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Gears lay in neat rows that snaked and twirled around the whole structure, like suckers on the bottom of an octopus’s tentacle. A light blue crystal of some sort was set behind a glass window in the thickest part of the upper arm section of the brace. 

Target #2 flopped sideways on the bed and reached for a small wrench that lay on a low workbench not far from the bed. It was only a few steps away, but instead of just getting up the Target stretched and grasped inelegantly for it, like a lazy child who didn’t want to get up and leave their chosen piece of furniture until it was absolutely necessary. He gave a small whoop when his fingers finally wrapped around it, and Target #1 smiled. 

Target #1 turned and offered his arms to Target #2, who began to quickly loosen the nuts, bolts, and occasional metal washers holding the braces together. With careful fingers he gathered up each little piece and set them in neat groups on the bedside table. Then he undid the tight ribbons of cloth around Target #1’s arms and slid the braces off. 

The Asset did not like how many surprises he was running into tonight. He would have to come up with a way to make his displeasure known without getting punished by his handlers for disobedience. 

Next came Target #1’s shirt, which was of a much lower quality than the coat or strange braces. A little bit of red paint stained the bottom hem. Underneath were another set of braces, this time wrapping around his chest like a second ribcage. These two were carefully loosened and removed. Then the Target’s pants were removed, and the same process was repeated for a set of leg braces that ran all the way from hip to ankle. 

Target #1 groaned and collapsed into bed next to Target #2. 

“Aaah, that’s better. I know they’re amazingly lightweight compared to anything else you could find, but by the end of the day they still start to feel pretty heavy.”

Target #2 stroked Target #1’s hair. 

“Yeah, I get that. Unfortunately, I can’t make them any lighter without sacrificing structural integrity, and I doubt you want to start taking them off for lunch.”

The Asset glanced at the discarded braces, then at his own metal limbs. He was willing to bet his enhancements were much heavier than Target #1’s. If he could detach even one of his metal arms and lay it across that tiny wisp of a man’s torso, the weight of it would pin him in place. 

“How’s your heart doing?” Target #1 asked. 

“Still ticking,” Target #2 replied. He tapped his knuckles against his chest, where they made a too-loud and too-clear  _ thump thump _ noise, like he’d been pounding on the cabin porthole window or a door instead of yielding flesh. 

He pulled Target #1 flush against his body and pressed a flurry of enthusiastic kisses to his cheek, lips and forehead. The sight made the Asset’s still-organic heart ache fiercely. The feeling nearly overwhelmed him for a second before he shoved it down ruthlessly. 

It was unfortunate that his handlers had not included sufficient memory- or information-tapes, but that was not an excuse to become timid and indecisive. The biggest, most important of the brain-tapes, the control-tape, was undamaged and functioning as normal. All he really needed was in there. Complete the mission. Follow all handler directives. Return to base after mission and submit to shutdown procedures. 

_ Complete the mission. _ The control-tape played, then rewound, then played again, keeping that phrase constantly looping through his mind. 

Both of his targets were in the room, secluded from other potential witnesses by the locked stateroom door. There was no need to seek out Target #1 before returning to base. 

Silently, the Asset raised his gun, making sure to remain shrouded in shadows so the glint of light on metal wouldn’t give his position away. Not that it really mattered. The targets were weak, soft, and distracted by each other. 

But then Target #2 was shouting a warning, and Target #1 had grabbed his strange arm brace and was pointing the blue crystal at the Asset, and then his brain-tapes began to burn and the world turned charcoal black. 


	2. Chapter 2

When the Asset awoke again, he was strapped to a table. Target #1 and Target #2 loomed over him, and the feeling of air on his leftover brain matter told him that his skull had been popped open. 

Lightning bolts of fear flashed through him. He had been captured. Somehow his targets had overpowered him, and now they were messing around inside his head _ (just like the HYDRA scientists did, just like Zola and his pet scientists and proteges, oh god oh god oh god) _ and if he couldn’t stop them, they might recover valuable intel. 

He tried to lift his limbs, tried to bend and tear whatever restraints held him in place so he could wrap his metal fingers around his target’s necks, but his limbs did not respond. Either they had been removed, hacked off like the originals, or Target #2 had managed to turn them off somehow. With his face pointed at the ceiling, there was no way to tell. 

His thoughts were hazy and unclear, and his brain-tapes wouldn’t play nicely. They kept spooling out and rewinding from random points, like someone was spooling out the miles and miles of thin little tapes and inspecting their complex surfaces. The only constant was the acrid, electric fear thrumming in his leftover brain matter. 

“Tony, what _ are _those?” Target #1 demanded. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet and his voice was weak and wavering. 

“I’m not sure, but I think they’re his _ brain- _ hold on, give me a second here.”

The world went dark again. 

* * *

The Asset woke next to the sound of distant explosions and Target #1 murmuring soft, soothing nonsense into his ear. 

“It’s going to be okay, Bucky, I promise, Tony will fix you up and it’ll be alright. You’re safe. They’ll never get their hands on you again.”

Target #1 must have been wearing his strange braces; the Asset could feel the gears turning and grinding against each other on the side of his face. 

_ Complete the mission. _

“It’ll be alright. Tony’s going to fix you, and then everything will be better.”

Something brushed against his leftover brain matter, and he felt his whole body flinch. Target #1 reacted immediately, grabbing him and holding him more securely to the operating table. The conviction running through his nonsense words like a vein of iron grew more pronounced. 

He didn’t have the memory-tapes of what he was like before he was HYDRA’s cyborg assassin, but he did have the one of Zola telling him in equally soft tones that _ he _ would be the one to make the Asset better, that once he was done wiring up his body and discarding the unnecessary bits, he would be more efficient, more resilient, more obedient, that he would be _ more. _ The sound of the saw grinding against his bones as they cut first his arms off, then his legs the feeling of pieces of his brain getting scooped out and and the horrifying _ splat _ it made when it was dropped into the trash, the map of all the wires and cables and pipes they’d threaded through his organs like another set of veins, it was all carefully preserved in the precise dots and ridges and impossibly-compact pictures printed with ink thinner than water. Those tapes were mounted right under the control-tape, and they played in endless, synchronized loops, complementing each other. 

He hoped as hard as his brutalized scraps of leftover brain matter allowed him to that he was wrong, that his targets weren’t about to do it all over again, but there was a reason Zola had scooped out so much of his brain. Ever since the first operations, his ability to hope had been weak and ineffectual. 

“Tony, how much longer?”

“I’m trying my best here, honey-bun, but these tape recorders are just so small. I guess they had to be, to fit so many of them inside the brain case. And some of these tapes haven’t been removed in forever, and I’m afraid to just rip them out. And all this dried blood sticking them to each other really makes everything easier. Really. Couldn’t have asked for better working conditions. I think I’ve almost got the center one, though.”

And then all of a sudden something in his head pulled-

Did it used to be this quiet in his head? He wasn’t sure why it wouldn’t be, but something felt wrong. What was he supposed to be doing? He was supposed to know what he was doing, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of it. The memory-tapes showed him a confusing mishmash of images, all of blood and distressing voices and horror, but they weren’t connected very well. He remembered being ordered to carry out an assassination. He remembered infiltrating Stark’s steamship, waiting in the room labeled _ Tony Stark _ so he could kill the man in his sleep, could remember the man whispering into his ear and the strange braces he wore, but no matter how he flipped through the tapes the reason why any of it happened. Why did he follow the order to commit the assassination? Who was he? When was it? What was he supposed to do?

The only answer was a memory-tape of his body being brutally remade. Useless.

Oh god, what if they removed one of the tapes? There wasn’t much more brain for them to remove, and even Tony Stark, who the information tapes told him was a brilliant inventor and scientist, would have to admit that his body had been physically optimized, but what if he wanted to remove the tapes and alter them, or replace them with his own? How would he even know if a tape was removed? Removing the tape from his skull removed every trace of it from his mind. He wouldn’t be able to access anything they removed, wouldn’t even remember that it had ever been there. 

“Jesus Christ, this thing is awful. Here, let’s play it on one of the modified projectors, see what we’re dealing with here.”

“Will that thing play on a regular tape player?” Steve Rogers, subversive artist wanted dead by HYDRA, asked. Horror and disgust colored his voice so severely that the Asset could barely match it to the sweet, soft voice whispering to him mere seconds earlier. 

“Not a regular one, the sizing is all wonky, but one of the modified ones I’ve rigged up will probably do the trick. We probably won’t get all the information recorded on it the first time through, but we can get sound and visuals. I think the old sheet screen is still hanging across the hall. We can use that. You remember how to set it up?”

_ Please, _ he wants to say, but he doesn’t have the information-tape that tells him how to talk. 

“I remember.”

“Good. You watch, I’ll keep working on these. I don’t want to take them all out until I know what they do, but I should at least clean the gore off. If you’re careful, it won’t degrade anything recorded on them, and it creeps me out. My lab looks like a scene from a horror movie. Besides, we can’t watch them if they’re all stuck together and crusted over like that.”

Steve Rogers, subversive artist wanted dead by HYDRA, made a noise like a puppy being kicked. He wishes he could make a noise like that too. 

Soft footsteps faded away in the direction of the door, which opened and then shut. 

“i’m sorry about this, I really am,” Tony Stark, brilliant inventor and scientist, told him. “If I knew how to make it all stop, I would. This has got to be pretty traumatic for you. I promise, I’ll put it all back when I’m done, put back anything you want me to put back. But I can’t help you until I know how you work.”

And then all of a sudden something in his head pulled-

The man continued to talk to him. He didn’t know why the man was comforting the cyborg monstrosity that had tried to kill him, but he clung to the words. They were different from the ones the small man with the fancy braces had said to him. Those words were too similar to Zola’s words to be at all comforting. This man’s words weren’t promises to make him better, to fix him or change him. This man (_ why didn’t he know his name? He’d tried to kill him, he should at least know his name-) _ promised to give him things back instead.

The man fiddling with his brain had gentle, careful fingers. He hoped that meant he was a gentle, careful man, a man who would keep his promise to give everything back-

Oh god, what if they removed one of the tapes? There wasn’t much more brain for them to remove, and his body had been physically optimized, but what if they wanted to remove the tapes and alter them, or replace them with his own? How would he even know if a tape was removed? Removing the tape from his skull removed every trace of it from his mind. He wouldn’t be able to access anything they removed, wouldn’t even remember that it had ever been there. 

And then all of a sudden something in his head pulled-

The unnamed man disappeared from view, but he could still hear him. Was he going to get some tool to take the tapes out? He said he’d put everything back, that he wasn’t even sure if he was going to take it all out, but surely he’d take at least one tape. 

If he was getting a tool to take them out, then that was- not good, but bearable. At least he wouldn’t just rip them out. And he said he’d put them back. 

He hadn’t done anything to earn this man’s kindness, and yet he here he was, unbearably, unprecedentedly kind. Even after he’d tried to kill him. 

Why had he been asked to kill this man? He didn’t know how to kill. He didn’t have very many skills at all, really. Was he just planning to figure it out when he got there? No wonder the kind man and the blonde waif with the body braces had managed to subdue him. 

“It would have been helpful if these things came with labels.”

The kind man came back into view, but he still couldn’t tell what he was doing. 

Oh god, what if they removed one of the tapes? There wasn’t much more brain for them to remove, and his body had been physically optimized, but what if they wanted to remove the tapes and alter them, or replace them with his own? How would he even know if a tape was removed? Removing the tape from his skull removed every trace of it from his mind. He wouldn’t be able to access anything they removed, wouldn’t even remember that it had ever been there.

A horrible realization made him start to shake in his bonds. What if they’d already removed a tape? What if they’d already removed more than one? They could just pluck memories and knowledge and everything that he was right out of his skull, and he wouldn’t even realize it. His memory was only as long as the current memory tape, and that tape just recorded what he saw, heard, and thought until the unused tape ran out. It didn’t record information accessed from other brain-tapes. Had he known the who the kind man was once? Had he had an actual plan to kill him and the waif, but couldn’t remember it because that knowledge was recorded on a tape that had already been removed?

How much of himself was missing?

His trembling turned into outright thrashing. 

The kind man stopped what he was doing and started stroking his hair and promising him he’d put it back, he’d do whatever he needed to do to make him comfortable and happy. He knew he should stop, should make things as easy as possible for the kind man who said he would give him his tapes back, but he just kept thrashing until the world went dark and he descended into some deep, shadowy place where time didn’t exist. 


	3. Chapter 3

When he woke up again, he was lying on a bed. 

Tony Stark, brilliant inventor and scientist, and Steve Rogers, subversive artist wanted dead by HYDRA, sat at his bedside next to a heaping pile of brain-tapes. 

“Welcome back, Bucky,” Steve Rogers said. His voice was hoarse, but his eyes were bright and present. “How do you feel?”

The Asset searched his tapes for the correct answer. 

“Hail Hydra,” he replied. The information-tapes telling him how to speak had been reinstalled, to his pleasure. 

Tony Stark sighed. “Well, I did put back all the ones I took out. Should have seen that coming.” To the Asset, he continued, “It’s okay if you don’t use your tapes when I ask you a question. I don’t mind if you give the wrong answer, and sometimes there won’t be a wrong answer. Of course, if you _ want _ to use your tapes, go ahead, I’m not going to stop you.”

“No one’s going to hurt you,” Steve Rogers broke in. “You’re safe here.”

_ Complete the mission, _ the control-tape insisted. 

“Do you know who we are?” Tony Stark asked. 

“Target #1: Steve Rogers, subversive artist wanted dead by HYDRA. Target #2: Tony Stark, brilliant inventor and scientist,” the Asset responded. 

“Call me Tony,” Tony said with a tight smile. “Save yourself the mouthful.”

The Asset couldn’t alter the information on the information-tapes, but Tony’s introduction was recorded on his current memory-tape so it wouldn’t be that hard to make the switch. 

“Same for me,” said Steve, nearly stumbling over the words in his haste to say them. “I’m Steve.”

“I put back as many of your tapes as I could,” Tony continued, “but there were just too many of them to all fit at once, so I tried to guess which ones would be more important. If you want one of the other ones, let me know and I’ll help you put it in. Same goes for if you want to take one out.”

He’d kept his promise, then. That was nice. 

Tony leaned forward and stared at him with terrifying focus. 

“Can you tell us if you have any injuries or malfunctions,” he glanced at the Asset’s metal limbs, “or any other physical issue? I’ve never seen someone with as many modifications as you have, and even a ‘brilliant inventor and scientist’ needs to know the symptoms before they try and diagnose a problem.” 

His smile was bright and inviting and not happy at all. The Asset glanced at Steve’s face, but had to look away again almost immediately. For some reason, Steve’s face made his leftover brain matter pulse painfully.

The Asset looked at the pile of brain-tapes. There were so many, more than he’d ever seen at once before. All together, their total volume was greater than that of his head. Possibly greater than the volume of his torso. Where had Steve and Tony found them all? They were usually housed in HYDRA bases; did that mean his captors had attacked those bases? If so, their possession of the tapes meant they must have beaten HYDRA. 

_ It is impossible to beat HYDRA, _ played his control-tape. _ It is impossible to beat HYDRA. It is impossible to try to beat HYDRA. HYDRA is not defied. _

Contents of the control-tape were directly at odds with the contents of his current memory-tape. He couldn’t remember that happening before, though that didn’t really mean much. His memory only really went back a couple of hours, not counting the time he was unconscious. But if this had been a problem before, then there might be a solution in his information-tapes. 

Steve and Tony grew restless as his silence extended, and at one point Tony tried to regain his attention, so he had to pause his search and tell him that he was simply looking through his tapes, but eventually he concluded that there was no information about conflicts between different tapes. However, when he turned his attention back to his fragmented, unordered memory-tapes, he found a memory of a mission where the information-tapes contained bad information. 

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a precedent he could work with. When in doubt, trust the current memory-tape, in case the situation has changed since the older tapes were made. 

“My brain enhancements are working within normal parameters. I need to test my other enhancements before I can confidently report a lack of malfunction, but they do not currently cause pain. However, once I complete my mission, I believe that my control-tape will cause distress and possible malfunction. I assume that you have managed to break into or defeat at least one HYDRA base in combat, or else you would not have so many of my brain-tapes. If HYDRA has gone to ground or been temporarily defeated, it will be difficult to return in an acceptable time frame.”

Steve’s eyes wobbled, distorted slightly, then began to shed tears in perfect, twin clear lines down his cheeks. 

“Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, your mission was to kill us, right?” Tony asked lightly, like the answer didn’t really matter to him.

“Yes.”

“Do you _ want _to kill us?”

“I do not have desire-tapes, and so do not feel coordinated or otherwise approved desires. Therefore I don’t know if I can answer the question meaningfully.”

The tear tracks on Steve’s cheeks grew thicker, but he didn’t take his eyes off the Asset for more than a second. 

“Hey, that’s okay,” Tony assured him. “We accept all sorts of brains in my workshops, even non-human ones. You say you don’t have ‘approved desires-‘ do you have any non-approved desires? It’s okay if they’re not _ really _desires, just give us anything you think might be analogous for you.”

The Asset tried to think. It was hard to do without turning to the brain-tapes for help, but not impossible. HYDRA had left behind enough brain matter to take care of simple and complex motor skills, biological functioning, and limited thought. The brain-tapes were useless if he couldn’t think to check them or understand what they said. 

It took a long time. At some point Tony got up and did something in another room before returning with a kitschy sea-themed tray and three mugs full of some sort of steaming liquid, but he barely noticed. 

“I want to watch all of the tapes,” he said at last. “So they’re all on my current memory-tape.”

“Okay,” Tony agreed easily. “Do you want to watch alone, or here with us?”

He tried to summon up a feeling one way or another, but his brain seemed to be done offering him emotional output for the moment. It was like trying to catch light in his hands. 

“I don’t care,” he said at last. “I promise, I tried to, but I can’t.”

“How about we compromise, then?” Tony suggested. “Watch them with Steve while I get some actual lab work done. That way, if you end up feeling one way or another about it later, we won’t both have seen them.”

The Asset felt like a compromise had been reached, so he agreed even though he wasn’t sure what was being compromised. Was the problem with watching alone that he might hide intel from them? Was there some special way to view the tapes that he’d need help figuring out?

* * *

It turned out there wasn’t a hidden practical reason that he couldn’t think of. Steve was just emotional. 

He sat on a large, overstuffed couch with Steve and watched the control tapes, then the information tapes, then the memory tapes in reverse chronological order, from his most recent mission to the oldest, thickest, most bloodstained tape. Tony assured him that it had taken him a whole hour to properly clean the delicate tape without damaging the contents. The Asset wasn’t sure why that would be; the control-tape was the most used tape, so wouldn’t it be the one that required the most maintenance? 

After showing both Steve and the Asset how to use the modified tape player, he bustled off to some other room with the air of a busy man finally getting the time to take care of several low-priority tasks that didn’t really need to be completed _ now, _ but sure had been piling up. There was an almost deliberate calmness to it, which the Asset appreciated. He always preferred when handlers were calm and unbothered. The likelihood that the same preferences would apply to captors was high. 

Once Tony left, Steve set up the first tape for him and settled down on the other side of the couch to watch with a stonily blank face. 

He didn’t even make it through the first tape before he lost control of his face. The blankness quickly slid away like a thundering avalanche. Magma-hot rage turned his face bright red, like he was choking on it. For a second, the Asset was scared that he would leap up and destroy the offending tape. 

Fear pulsed through his leftover brain matter, much more potent than he’d ever felt before. The tapes couldn’t be destroyed. Sometimes they were frustrating, and up until being captured maintenance had always been painful as well as disorienting and vaguely terrifying, but what would he be without them? A spotty memory was better than no memory at all. 

Was this what Tony meant, when he asked him what he wanted? Was this hot-fear-cold-hope feeling _ want? _

Without thinking he launched himself across the couch and grabbed Steve’s wrists with one hand. 

It was the wrong thing to do, and the few information-tapes still in his head told him that he would certainly be punished for this, and that the memory-tape of the punishment would be left in his head for a long, long time, but it would be worth it. If Steve damaged the tapes, he was damaging the Asset. 

The Asset was not to be damaged. 

_ (Come on, Jack, superficial damage only! They’ve already replaced everything they fucking can. What if you affected him permanently? Here, let me show you how to make it hurt without breaking the skin-) _

The Asset has been punished before. It isn’t pleasant, but he can get through it. But never before has a tape been destroyed. HYDRA kept everything, just in case they needed it in the future. 

Yes, this was _ want. _But was it always so tangled up with fear? Or was fear just a necessary byproduct of desire?

Steve went still at the touch of his metal fingers to his skin. Slowly, the anger colors drained from his face. His eyes slid down to stare at where the Asset had clasped his hands. A glowing smile replaced the anger, and he readjusted his hands in the Asset’s slackened grip so that their fingers where intertwined. One of the gears on his arm brace rubbed against his arm, making a small metal-on-metal grinding sound, but that was okay. Unlike the tapes, the metal arm could be repaired. 

“It’s okay, Bucky. I’m not going anywhere.”

_ Who the hell is Bucky? _ the Asset doesn’t ask. It doesn’t look like the tapes are in danger anymore, though, so he let it go. Whatever kept Steve happy. 

Before long, Steve’s smile turned wet and weepy. He squeezed the Asset’s hand at irregular intervals, and freed on of his hands at the beginning of the memory-tapes so he could wrap his arm around the Asset’s shoulders. 

It felt… nice. Like his leftover brain matter had been wrapped in a fuzzy blanket and put in a puddle of sunlight. _ Familiar. _

Through no effort on the Asset’s part, he ended up curled up on Steve’s lap, held securely by warm arms and hands still interlocked. When Steve leaned over him to put a new memory-tape on the machine, he snuck a glance at those braces. With his cyborg augmentations, he was at least twice Steve’s size, if not more. Steve’s arms were sticks with a bit of flesh wrapped around them. Did those braces somehow give him the ability to lift the Asset onto his lap so smoothly he barely even noticed it?

Overall, it was a much more emotional experience for Steve than for the Asset. He didn’t hold it against Steve. The Asset didn’t have emotion-tapes to tell him how to feel, so he just paid attention to each new tape and felt his current memory-tape roll and roll. 

And then Steve put on the last tape. 

Oh. The Asset was Bucky. Huh. 

* * *

The last tape recorded all of his pre-HYDRA memories. It must have been the first tape they made, back when they first started scooping out parts of his brain. It made sense to have a backup copy, he guessed, in case you messed up. It made sense. 

Steve was all over the last tape. Those braces were definitely making him stronger than he rightfully should be; the Steve on the tapes was so frail and sickly, Bucky had had to take an army field mechanic job he didn’t want, and the mandatory two tours that came with it, just to learn how to make and repair a steam-floor to keep Steve warm in the winter. 

That explained why HYDRA got their tentacles on him; he’d been injured in combat on his second tour, just a week before he was supposed to head back to Steve, so badly he couldn’t flag down the body-retrieval automatons. He’d lain there, bleeding out into the snow, until someone finally noticed that he was still breathing and dragged him off to the first of many, many bases.

That part wasn’t very interesting, though. What was interesting was how Steve punched people who said mean things about cyborgs, how he insisted there was nothing wrong with needing a steam-powered mechanical hand or leg or spine, how he wasn’t afraid to tell Bucky he loved him when Bucky himself had been so scared to say the same words, how he drew people like automatons and automatons like people once after a frustrating day. 

It was too bad the Asset didn’t have love-tapes. 

* * *

Tony came back in the middle of Steve’s sobbing, half-coherent explanation that he had thought Bucky was dead, and that was why he was dating Tony now. For a split second, Tony’s eyes widened and darted towards the door like he was thinking of fleeing in the face of Steve’s emotional display regarding their relationship. After a moment’s pause, he put on a brave face and marched over to the couch. 

“Not to interrupt your touching reunion,” he said, pitching his words loud enough to be heard over Steve, “but I have to ask: now that you’ve seen all the tapes, are you planning on running back to the nearest HYDRA base that’s not on fire and reporting for your next mission, or would you rather stay with us.”

Without the control-tape thrumming in the center of his brain case, it’s easy to say _ stay. _

“Okay then, what do you want to do tape-wise? I’m a mechanical engineer- I can’t regrow your brain for you, and most mechanical replacements are enormous, and take multiple steam engines to power anyways. I doubt you want to spend the rest of your life walking around with three huge steam engines rolling behind you on little carts on leashes like the world’s heaviest, worst trained dogs, so we’re just going to have to work with the available structures.”

“You mean, make more tapes?” 

Tony shrugged. 

“The old ones are all on your current memory-tape, right? Sounds to me like you’ve opened up a lot of space for new ones. Especially if you’re not planning on putting the control-tape back in.” He threw out his hands in a demonstrative gesture. “You’re a certified Tabula Rasa. With the right equipment, you can make yourself into whatever you want. Want to be a 12th century East European folklorist? I don’t even know if that’s an actual occupation, but you can become one. I’ll show you how to make a tape, and you can load it up with whatever you want.”

His eyes flickered over to Steve, then back again, like a hummingbird flitting from one flower to another. 

“You could even code some interpersonal stuff, if you wanted. I can show you some books I bought back before I met Steve and I thought I’d have to actually learn some social graces if I didn’t want to die alone.”

The Asset blinked. Was Tony implying something? Was this because he’d kissed Steve back when he was Bucky? If so, was that supposed to be some horribly ambiguous sort of permission, or a subtle way of warning him off? Was this because he’d messed up somewhere, hadn’t reacted right, and Tony was trying to correct him preemptively? Was it something else entirely? Was he angry? 

Everything would be so much easier if he could tell when and why people were angry with him. It certainly would have helped him avoid some of the punishments he’d just finished watching. He laughed inside his head; maybe he should ask Tony to fix his anger issues. _ No, don’t make it so I’m less angry. I can’t feel anger, no danger on that front. I just want to be able to recognize it in the wild. _

Steve sat up straight at Tony's words, as though he'd been shocked with a stun baton. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He gestured at Bucky, then at Tony, then at himself. Tony nodded. The Asset wished they'd use their words. 

It didn’t matter in the end. If the kindest man he’d ever met was suggesting it, he’d acquiesce. 

“I’d like that,” he said. 

“Great! Come on then, let’s give Steve some time to collect himself while we hunt down some tools- I bet I’ve still got that old printmaking set in stowed under the dining room settee.”

He followed Tony down a series of narrow corridors connecting thick-looking, tightly-sealed doors. At one point they passed a window, and he caught a glimpse of giant interlocking gears spinning next to an engine belching steam, metallic and shiny against the backdrop of green farmland far below. They must be on some sort of flying steamship. 

Finally Tony opened a door just like the seventeen others they’d passed and ushered him inside. 

“So, how much do you already know about making tapes?”

* * *

Later, after Tony left, the Asset pondered the blank tape in front of him. He didn’t want to waste Tony’s precious gift of a self determination far more literal than most people ever got the chance to have. But what should he do with it? Tony’s advice about making new information-tapes was solid, but he didn’t feel any special drive or rush to make more information tapes. The information would still be there tomorrow, and the day after. 

He thought about Tony, and Steve, and how sweet they were together and to him. He thought about how his previous incarnation, Bucky, had loved Steve, and about how he’d laid on the table at Tony’s mercy and received kindness instead of brutality, and later how he’d been given choices instead of orders. 

Most of all, he thought about _ want. _

With shaking hands, he began to write out the code he wanted encoded on the first tape. It wasn’t quite like an information-tape, not quite like a control-tape either. It was kind of cobbled together, and light on details and step-by-step how-tos, but that was okay. He could always make a new tape later, when that information became available. 

Slowly, the code for an Asset who loved Steve and Tony and made them smile began to take shape.


End file.
